Duration: 4D 3N
Type: Family, Budget
Flight: MAS
Hotel: Marina Court KK
Pax: 6 Adult, 1 cute toddler


Percutian dan menyelam di Kota Kinabalu Sabah.

It was Hari Raya Haji and we decided to go for a long vacation to Kota Kinabalu Sabah. It has been 15 years since I set my foot here. This is another way for us to escape the haze situation in KL. We book the flight with MAS. Kakak, Abang Mirul and Zayyan went on an earlier flight and pick up the car. We rented from Hertz. The rest of us took a midnight flight to KK.

When we were there, we took the cab to the KK Marina Court - a vacation rental in heart of KK.  We took the 3B2B apartment.The surroundings of the apartment includes the big shopping mall with hard Rock Cafe and several shop lots that has restaurants, mart and such. We paid about RM1000+ for 3 nights. It was raya eve, so we brought along some rendang, nasi impit and lontong. 

My parents and I went out for drinks at 1 am at a mamak stall near by and I am back to sleep for my early morning diving - luckily they are open on Hari Raya itself. My dive operator for this time is Dive Down Below situated in Gaya Island. I choose the operator based on reviews and seeing that they set up a based in Gaya Island with good facilities.

I took a 1-day 3 dives for RM365 which includes lunch, snacks, equipments and other stuff. I even asked the owner about the lunch's halal status and it turns out, the chicken is from a halal source. They offered pick-up and drop-off service to your hotel.

I drink a milo and ate a bread before heading down to the gate and being picked up. The van then pick up the dive center staff who is in town. We were taken to the Marina Bay to depart on the nice big boat. Once at the resort, I registered and met my dive guide, Azhar who is very pleasant. We joked about how me did not celebrate Raya this year. I met a fellow diver from the UK who is diving alone.

The jetty at Dive Down Below

After equipment fitting, we met them at the boat and off we go to the 1st spot. On the boat i met 2 dive inters at the resort. The visibility was nice, better than I expected although it's a bit hazy up here. On my first dive, I saw 3 turtles! Yes, 3! The group saw 2 and when we split up, Azhar was actually going to show me a lobster but we were surprised to see a turtle resting under the rock. Seeing the turtle swimming up from close distance is just magical.

The biggest turtle that day.

We head to our second dive which is full of hard corals. Lunch time comes, we ate and later we were joined by a new dive guide. We went to see some scorpion fish, and the usual tropical fishes. The facility DDB provided was 5 stars! The boat is big and they help you with the equipment and stuff and the food was okay. I went back to the hotel at 5.30 pm.

The sambal was good.

Tough and bland lobster :(

Later that night, all of us walked together to the Phillipines Market for dinner. Here, the seafood is abundance. the price is really cheap. Since we don't know which store to go, we just gamble to go with the one with the crowd. The cooking was a hit or miss. The sambal udang was a killer while my lobster was bland and tough.

We head back to the hotel through the fish market and buy some fruits. Gotta sleep early for tomorrow's full tour!